Halloween Ago
by starmoony
Summary: Lily's last thoughts on that fateful night. Please R&R!


A/N: My first fic for this fandom. Check out my other Padmoon stuff if you like. Also, R&R please! Let me know how I'm doing.

Disclaimer: If I owned them, they wouldn't be dead plzkthx.

Halloweens Ago

A distant thud, and James is gone. It angers her that an entire way of existing can be summed up in a thud. But it is a faraway anger that doesn't quite touch her. A tiny figure skating across the boundless ice of her disbelief.

She cannot bring herself to think, crouched awkwardly in a corner with a squirming bundle clasped to her chest. She does not know quite what to do. It is a long moment, perhaps the longest of her life. And what kind of a life will it be now? A life spent alone. A desolate life. A lost life.

James, her James, James and his laughing eyes, James and his soft kisses, James and the unexpected joy of waking beside him on Sunday morning. Tousled hair, the most beautiful hair. James who was so courageous, who was so strong, who kept her safe, who made her hope. James who sometimes hugged her from behind as she washed the dishes. James who sang terribly off key lullabies. James who smelled musky like the middle of a forest. Her James. The James that promised her the world. The James that promised her forever. The James that was dead on the living room floor, his glasses askew, blood trickling from a cut in his forehead. James that was so human despite his perfection. James that told her he loved her. James that loved her until the end.

James who was everything she had, the only thing she had. Who she had taken so long to realize she needed. James had died like a hero. He had always been a hero, larger than life. In her memory were tucked away little snippets of James as a man, nothing more. James asleep on the couch, exhausted after a day fighting death eaters. James haloed in the lamplight as he solved an arithmancy problem. James laughing at Sirius' antics, flinging a brotherly arm around Remus. James trying desperately to make his hair lay flat.

Suddenly Lily remembered a Halloween ago. The others had come to visit their new house. Their first house, the one they loved, the one that made them feel so adult and responsible.

_"This can only end in tragedy," Remus had laughed, ducking away from the frightening enchanted bat decorations. "The two of them have taken over the party plans. I had to come in here to escape the insanity. Hallo Lily," he had said, kissing her cheek and giving her a look of long suffering understanding._

What would Remus be tomorrow? Betrayed by one of his own, a broken man. Not the spy, never the spy. Wracked again by guilt that his friends had tried so hard to rid him of.

_"Remus!" Sirius had cried, hurling himself at his second best friend. They exchanged a Boy's Club jostle, and then a brief embrace that spoke volumes._

Perhaps Sirius and Remus would mourn together. She knew they needed each other, but they had been torn apart of late by life and Voldemort. They didn't love one another the way they had last Halloween.

_"Seen the decorations then?" Asked little Peter. She had loved him least, last Halloween. Sirius was charismatic enough to be adored wherever he went. Remus she had loved at first sight, as they were kindred spirits, intrinsically alike. She had accepted Peter, but had never tried to understand him._

How she regretted it now.

_"Of course Remus loves the decorations." She had felt a familiar arm over her shoulder. It's weight both heavy and comforting._

An arm that would never wrap around her, would never grope across the bed for her, would never cast the perfect spell at just the right moment again. Never again.

Until this long moment, this horrible moment of realization, she had been afraid. There was so much to lose. James, Remus, Sirius, Peter. All of them were heroes. Not one of them was afraid. They would give everything, try anything, to save others, to save each other. But now she was not afraid. Now she was numb. James the hero, the brave, the strong, had fallen. There was only Lily left, Lily the last fragile barrier between Harry and unspeakable evil.

Harry, the thing that made her most afraid. Never to see him grow up. Never to see him onto the train at Hogwarts. Never to see him again. To be forgotten by him. How she loved him. How James had loved him. She remembered their conversation only yesterday afternoon.

"Keep your chin up, darling, for his sake."

The moment passed. The disbelief faded, replaced immediately by a terrible resolve. She was going to die. She could hear the footsteps mounting the stairs, into the nursery where she waited without a plan, unprepared. She would die. But she couldn't live without James. She didn't know how to live without James. She wasn't meant to survive. She wouldn't live without James, but Harry could and Harry _would_. She whipped out her wand as the door exploded inward. For James she would save him. Her love would find a way.


End file.
